480 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



Recent investigation serves to prove that this region was 

 underlaid with deposits of petroleum and soft asphaltum, 

 and that these deposits were liberated through the natural 

 opening up of earth cracks by earthquakes, or by pres- 

 sure of the material below; these fissures became filled with 

 soft asphaltum. Especially during the Pleistocene period 

 such breaks appear to have been frequent, and the animals 

 passing over this ground would become entangled in the mass 

 of soft material. As asphaltum is an excellent preservative, 

 the bones have been preserved remarkably well up to the 

 present time, as well as were the human and animal mummies 

 of ancient Egypt. 



ELEPHANT HUNTING IN THE SUDAN 

 See page 208 



In the Sudan the natives are allowed to kill elephants in 

 the district in which they have been born and have perma- 

 nently resided. This is a kind of official acknowledgment of 

 their claim that the particular district belongs to those born 

 there. If, however, a native hunter goes outside of his 

 own province to kill elephants, he has to pay the usual 

 price of £50 for a permit authorizing the killing of but two 

 elephants, and only in case the tusks of the animals killed 

 are exceptionally heavy will the cost of the permit be thereby 

 defrayed, leaving perhaps a little profit. The sporting pro- 

 clivities of British Government employes in the Sudan are 

 rather discouraged by the administration, for when an em- 

 ploye asks for a vacation and, in answer to the question 

 where he wishes to go, replies that his destination is the 

 South, he is told that the southern climate there is too hot 

 and unhealthy to benefit him, and that his holiday would do 

 him no good unless he went to the North, where, however, 

 there is little game to be found. 



One method of hunting used by the natives is to set fire 



